'Obscure Tea-Bagging Operation'

The Goldman Sachs-funded business news watchdog blog at the Columbia Journalism Review goes after a fellow non-profit news organization, ProPublica, for a ProPublica article on wasteful stimulus spending. Columbia Journalism Review criticizes ProPublica for using a quotation from a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, which Columbia Journalism Review sneeringly and condescendingly and dismissively and, well, offensively, characterizes as "some obscure tea-bagging operation." Citizens Against Government Waste has been around since 1984, and its 2007 IRS Form 990 indicates it had revenue and expenses of about $4.4 million, more if you include an affiliated 501(c)4 group. It claims "more than one million members and supporters." Its directors as of the 2007 Form 990 included Vin Weber, who is a bigdeal. Its annual "pig book" report is widelycovered. The Columbia Journal Review, by comparison, reportedly had in 2007 "an annual budget of $2.3 million, and circulation of about 19,000, including 6,000 student subscriptions." Uh, who is calling whom obscure? That Citizens Against Government Waste is deemed obscure by the Ivy League elite trainers of journalists over at Columbia Journalism School (who, okay, also include somefriends of mine) tells you more about those academic elites and the press than about Citizens Against Government Waste, which is a perfectly useful Washington advocacy group as far as Washington advocacy groups go.

Update: Citizens Against Government Waste spokeswoman Leslie Paige emails us, in response to a query: "Thanks for asking. Twenty-five years in the waste-fighting biz and one million members and supporters nationwide is hardly obscure; maybe the blogger, who is, after all, at a journo school, might have bothered to do a little research but, alas, that is why we need Propublica! Somebody has to do some actual investigative journalism."

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